Mexico teams up with Google to promote ancient ruins

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Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History signed an agreement with Google Mexico to promote archaeological and historical sites in a bid to revive tourism following the swine flu epidemic.

The plan uses several elements of the Google platform, including placing maps of archaeological sites and directions to them on Google Earth.

The institute has started a channel on the video-sharing site YouTube at youtube.com/INAHTV.

The government agency said it is working on more interactive and virtual tours, including 360-degree and rotating videos of pyramids and other sites.

The Institute's 173 archaeological sites and 116 museums were closed for more than a week at the height of the swine flu epidemic, but reopened in early May.

Tourism plunged following the outbreak. The Tourism Department said Tuesday that occupancy rates had fallen as low as 9 to 12% at the country's nine biggest tourism sites one month ago, but has since recovered to about 43%.

The government has launched the "Vive Mexico" campaign to jump-start tourism, the nation's third-largest source of legal foreign income.

Hotels have launched special offers and President Felipe Calderon enacted a new tourism law that provides for better cooperation between local and federal officials and between the government and the private sector.

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